


FFVII Folk Tales: Haunted mansion

by ixieko



Series: FFVII Folk Tales [4]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5623006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixieko/pseuds/ixieko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a lot of tales about the abandoned mansion near the town of Nibelheim; these stories started back when the house was still new. This is one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	FFVII Folk Tales: Haunted mansion

_The tale, as told by Adele Kaufer, a local shopkeeper in the village of Heimschanze. Recorded on 7th of September, 1921._

Do you know that rich people that once owned the Mansion up in mountains were skilled in witchcraft?  
This story happened when my great-grandma was young. She was born in Nibelheim the same year as the daughter of the rich man that owned the old Mansion. His wife died shortly after, and he raised his child alone, loved her dearly and allowed her to do anything she wanted. When she grew up, he sent her to Midgar to get education, and she returned with a husband. The father wasn’t happy, because, while the young lad was very handsome, he didn’t have any skill in business. But seeing that his daughter was in love, he accepted her choice, hoping that in time the man will learn.

While the old man was alive, the young husband treated her well, but after his father-in-law died, he began to show his real face. While his wife was out in other cities doing business, he was feasting in their house, bringing his friends for company and women from nearby town’s brothel for entertainment. Servants loved the young mistress and tried to tell her about his wrongdoings, but at first she didn’t believe them, until once she returned a day earlier and caught her husband in bed with another woman.  
She wanted to kick him out, but he dropped to his knees and begged for forgiveness, and swore that it was only once and he would never do it again. She still loved him, and so she believed him, but he harbored a grudge against her and decided to take her to an early grave and have all her wealth to himself. At first, he tried to poison her food, but the cook saw it and replaced the dish before it was brought to the table. Seeing that the poison had no effect on his wife, the scoundrel tried to hire a gang to kill her on the road, but her guards bested them and questioned one of the bandits, and thus knew that her husband was behind the attack.

Shortly before the Harvest (Autumn equinox, a holiday widely celebrated on the Western Continent - M.), the townspeople told her that her husband was in search for bandits again, and she decided to taught him a lesson which he will never forget. She told him that she was going on a journey far from home, to Wutai, but actually, she sent only her guards and her assistants. She stayed the house of one of servants, and prepared ingredients: pumpkins, and candles, and cloth, and herbs. My great-grandma helped her to harvest them, that’s how I knew. She drew smiling faces on pumpkins, and tied pink ribbons on top of each and strips of white cloth to their bottoms, like skirts.  
On the Harvest night she lit candles and bunches of grass, cut her hand with a sharp knife and sprinkled her blood over the pumpkins, and uttered the incantation. And when she said the last word, instead of pumpkins there were eight pretty girls in shiny dresses. She then brought them to the crossroads, where the chocobo-driven carriage was waiting, and went to the town, to brothel where her husband usually picked women. There she arranged so that only girls she brought with herself would be around. She put on a long, semi-transparent dress and hid her face behind a veil, and waited.

When her husband arrived, he spotted her right away and chose her and several others, and took them to the Mansion. Young witch waited until they all were inside the house, and when her husband opened her veil, she smiled at his shocked face and clapped her hands three times, and pretty girls turned into pumpkins again. But they were not just common pumpkins anymore, for now they could fly, and immediately began to chase after unfaithful husband and his friends, laughing and making dorky faces at them. The girl then went out of the house and shut the door tight, locking them all inside.  
They say that some of the guests jumped out of windows, and others crawled out of chimneys, and ran away screaming. Her husband was found a few days later in mountains, so scared by her that he was only happy to give her a divorce and fled as soon as he could. They say that he never recovered and was so frightened by women that he became a hermit and lived all his life somewhere in southern forests.

Later, she married another man, a good man this time, but she never lived in the Mansion again, and it stayed empty and forgotten for many years, with only a couple of servants and a gardener looking after it. Her heirs tried to sell it many times, but nobody wanted to buy a haunted house where pumpkin-like monsters were floating in every room. They tried to dispose of monsters, but didn’t manage to find someone who would be able to defeat even one of them, such strong was the magic.  
A couple of months ago, some smart brains like yourselves came from somewhere over there, Cosmo Canyon or something, and claimed that they confined all monsters to one room in the basement and the Mansion is safe now, but nobody really believed them. What can science do against witchcraft?

_(From “Customs and Traditions of Middle West in Folk Tales”, Evan Marius, 1924)_


End file.
